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Educating for Citizenship: Reappraising the Roleof Science Education

Wolff-Michael Roth, University of VictoriaJacques Désautels, Université de Laval

Abstract

New discoveries and technological inventions render the world increasingly complex.Fostering students’ scientific and technological literacy has therefore become a primarygoal for many science educators. Yet the concept of scientific literacy is itself not at allclear. In this article, we contest the dominant approach, which defines scientific literacyin terms of what scientists produce or do. We argue that a more viable approach beginsby framing a more general project of (democratic) citizenship and asks what kind of sci-entific literacy can contribute to this project. The different parts of our argument are il-lustrated with data from a three-year ethnographic study of science in one community.These data feature adult residents participating in the contested issue of whether to extendthe existing watermain supply a part of the community with water that currently has torely on seasonally contaminated wells. Irrespective of their science background, thesecitizens engage scientists.

A politicized ethic of care (caring for) entails becoming actively involved in a local mani-festation of a particular problem, exploring the complex sociopolitical contexts in whichthe problem is located, and attempting to resolve conflicts of interest. Preparing studentsfor action necessarily means ensuring that they gain a clear understanding of how deci-sions are made within local, regional, and national government, and within industry andcommerce. (Hodson, 1999, p. 789)

Democratic citizenship is a core concept in many societies—the discourse ofcitizenship education shows up in the policies and curricula not only of Canada

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but also of jurisdictions as diverse as Australia, Russia, Colombia, and Singa-pore (Sears, in press). Science education is often linked to citizenship. Our basicpremise in this article is the contention that science education, in schools and asa life-long endeavor, is of little use if it does not allow students to care for and,in particular, engage in action. Recent scholarship in the social studies of scienceunderscores the need of citizens to get involved in the decision-making proc-esses concerning controversial socio-scientific and sociotechnical issues. In thisarticle, we argue for a view of science that engages with the people in the com-munity, not in terms of laboratory science, but on the citizen’s terms. We pro-vide one case study from a small community on the Canadian West Coast,where residents engage politicians and scientists to get access to the watermainthat supplies the rest of the community. We see this case study as a model of thekind of citizens that we want students to become. These are citizens in the sensethat Hodson outlined it in our opening quote. We conclude that it may not benecessary that all citizens have acquired the same stock of scientific knowledgebut rather that all citizens have the competence to enter what ever knowledgethey have into the public (political) discourse. It is only when science can par-ticipate in such conditions where other knowledge forms are equally consideredthat science has become truly democratic.

Introduction

There is an increasing public awareness of the ethical, practical, and politicaldimensions that characterize sociotechnical controversies, including those ofmad cow disease (BSE), climate change, or the diffusion of genetically modifiedorganisms. Modern science is deeply enmeshed with the personal and public is-sues of our times (Restivo, 1988), all the more so in the present controversialglobalization (Held & McGrew, 2000) and in the context of what Beck (1992),Giddens (1994) and other sociologists have termed “risk society.” The modifi-cation of our environment, and in fact, the modification of human nature, are is-sues that should concern all members of society. Science and technology, as anyother domains that shape public and private life, should therefore become le-gitimate objects of reflection on the part of all citizens. That is why we believethat a central endeavor of science educators has to be the problematization ofscience and technology and the stance any citizen should take with respect toscientific knowledge and technological artifacts as they are socialized. Here weassume that it is only out of this problematization that we can reappraise the roleof science education in the promotion and service of an informed and engagedcitizenship.

Citizenship and Science Education 3

In science education, the notion of citizenship has often been conceptual-ized and argued in terms of “scientific literacy” (DeHart Hurd, 1998; Laugksch,2000). More so, in many countries, governments and other agencies have issuedpolicy statements that stipulate the sciences as necessary ingredient in the de-velopment of an informed and engaged citizenship. For instance, concerned withthe question of scientific literacy, its role in American society, and ways ofachieving it, Science for all Americans (Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1990) containsan argument for science education that helps students become informed citizenscapable with others to use science and technology wisely in order to solve thenumerous global problems humans now face. But it is quite remarkable how sci-ence and technology are presented as unproblematic in such documents (Irwin &Wynne, 1996). First, science and technology are not contrasted with other le-gitimate ways of representing nature. Second, science and technology are oftendefined as human endeavors presenting certain limits but in this retain their sup-posedly universal character (Cobern, 1996) and thereby transcend the histori-cally contingent and local conditions of their production. Third, the pertinenceand value of science and technology in relation to the realization of personal andsocial goals is seldom called into doubt. All of this leads to the adoption of ascientistic attitude that overvalues a particular form of thinking adapted to theparticular circumstances of scientific research but with little use in everyday life(McGinn & Roth, 1999). Finally, questioning only the applications of scienceand technology instead of scrutinizing the production of knowledge obscures theideological dimensions and political ties that science and technology have to thefinancial, industrial, and military sectors of society.

In the science education community, one can notice the emergence of de-bates that question the foundations of traditional scientific literacy discourseseither from a multicultural perspective (Lewis & Aikenhead, 2001; Stanley &Brickhouse, 2001) or a more sociological perspective (Désautels, 1998; Jenkins,1999). In this article we, too, adopt a stance that differs from conventional sci-ence education as it is portrayed in literature on scientific literacy. We contendthat one must begin with the notion of an active and critical citizenry and thenproblematize science and technology in its service. Drawing on the sociology ofscientific knowledge we describe science and technology as contingent prac-tices. Being built on contingent practices, science and technology are subject tointerrogation of the assumptions that underlie their moment-to-moment deci-sion-making processes. In so doing we deconstruct the arbitrary social hierarchyof knowledge (Larochelle, 2001; Quicke, 2001) that put scientific knowledge ontop of the epistemic heap, and rehabilitate other forms of knowledge (includingcommon sense, local expertise, and indigenous knowledge) as a powerful re-

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sources in the debates over sociotechnical controversies. Our case study of sci-ence in the community, which is centered on the quality of water in one Cana-dian community, illustrates the active participation of ordinary citizens in a de-mocratic debate over sociotechnical issues and the reflexive stance to expertiseand expert knowledge taken in the debate. In sum, we intend this article to beread as an argument for rethinking scientific literacy from the more general per-spectives of citizenship and inclusive democracy.

Science: From Cathedrals (Citadels) to Real Laboratories and the Polis

Recent decades have seen a shift in the appreciation of science. Initially similarto religious dogma (Lewontin, 1991) celebrated by high priests in “cathedrals”(Fuller, 1997; Knorr-Cetina, 1992) and “citadels” (Martin, 1998), science hasbecome associated with the messiness of real laboratories and finally with theeveryday life of the polis (Brown & Michael, 2001).1 It is only when science ispart of the polis that citizens will be empowered because their dependence onscientists as the sole normative force has been ended—as related analyses on thedemocratization of state and market have shown (Fotopoulos, 1999b).

From dogma...

For many years, philosophers granted the sciences (and medicine) a form of“epistemological exceptionalism” (Bimber & Guston, 1995; Freidson, 1970).Epistemological exceptionalism explains why sociologists of science were notallowed to study the production of scientific knowledge. It is certainly the casethat sociologists were allowed to study the organization of science (promotionsystem, invisible colleges, ethical and cognitive norms, etc.) but they were for-bidden to critically reflect on the nature of scientific knowledge, which wasthought to transcend its conditions of production. Although scientific knowledgewas produced by social beings, it appeared to acquire quasi-divine properties(neutrality, universality, transcendence, etc.) in a process resembling “Immacu-late Conception” (Fuller, 1997). Those who practiced this form of epistemologi-cal asceticism were thought to develop a personality reflecting those very prop-erties. Scientists became socially disincarnated neutral beings capable to brackettheir subjectivities and access the true nature of things.

1 Polis is the term for the Greek city-state. It is associated with a sense of community anddirect and economic democracy, where issues where often discussed in public forums(Fotopoulos, 1995).


to enigma…

In recent years, sociologists and anthropologists who studied scientists at workhave largely debunked this image of science and contributed to the transforma-tion of the epistemological dogma of science into a social enigma. In painstak-ing and meticulous detail, these studies described how scientists negotiate thecriteria that underlie their judgement about what will be recognized as a success-ful experiment, a valuable result or interpretation, and the trust and value of aspecific piece of work (Pinch, 1990; Lenoir, 1993). Furthermore, science is notsomething that occurs in laboratories entirely detached from the rest of theworld. Rather, scientific research depends on tremendous networks of actors andagencies that connect and suspend laboratory activities in everyday life morebroadly. Thus, scientists have to trust those who supply them with standardizedproducts, produce scientific instruments and the theories they materialize andalso, trust their colleagues from other disciplines who make judgements aboutthe value of the various forms of knowledge that they use in their work. Notonly is trust a necessary ingredient for the maintenance of the network of scien-tific activities, but also this trust has to be given knowing that not a single personor even a group of persons can have a clear picture of the whole of the network.The complexity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that there are morethan, 20,000 journals in biology and the U.S. Library of Congress receives morethan 80,000 scientific journals. In this context, having conducted climate-change-related research for many years, Ungar (2000) suggested: “after a decadeof clipping articles from Science and Nature, my sense that climate change isreal ultimately boils down to picking the experts you think you can trust” (p.297).

It is within this context that one can say that the various forms of scientificknowledge are marked by the contingencies (material, symbolic, economic, so-cial, etc.) that constitute the local conditions of their production. Therefore, theirso-called universal character, which presupposes scientists’ abilities to adopt agod’s-eye view of their object of study, is a kind of mystification. In the sameway, the idea that scientists follow a step-by-step scientific method to solve theproblems is inconsistent with what they do when they are observed: Scientists’theoretical and empirical practices are better described as a collective, intellec-tual, and material bricolage (Pickering, 1995). Only in a retrospective, when sta-ble facts have emerged from the mangle of practice, do things become clean cutand exportable elsewhere. In real-time activity, the messiness and complexity ofthe (laboratory) world renders any prediction about the future state of affairs im-probable. No sociologist or anthropologist of science has noticed at work a dis-

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incarnated mind that, in solitary confinement, thinks of a theory or realizes anexperiment.

With all this contingency, how is one to explain how these contingent prod-ucts—published as statements which refer to their conditions of production (IFa, b, c, ... THEN... x, y, z)—acquire a certain robustness, a regional acceptabilityand, in some instances, an international recognition? The aura of universalitythat frequently surrounds scientific knowledge is a consequence of scientists’activity, which contributes to the construction and maintenance of worldwidenetworks of human and non-human actors (Latour, 1999). The stability and uni-versality of scientific knowledge is a direct consequence of the stability of thesenetworks. In participating in these network activities scientists around the worldcome to agree, for instance, that all bodies fall under the influence of gravity orthat the ozone layer is being depleted. Instead of focusing on the mystifying no-tion of universality, researchers are now interested in levels of generality (Cal-lon, 1999). This generality is a function of the extension of the networks thatallow for their re-production or mobilization for certain purposes. In otherwords, the generality of scientific knowledge depends on the possibility totransport their conditions of production into new situations.

One can draw several epistemological lessons from this sketch of science.Science and technology, through and through social practices, construct knowl-edge that bears the conditions of its production. Because knowledge is contin-gent, it can be interrogated. Scientific knowledge can no longer claim episte-mologically exceptional status but has to interact with other forms of knowledgeon an equal footing. As social practices, science and technology do not simplyaffect society but they literally produce the social. Thus, scientists produce enti-ties (bacteria, hormones, materials, etc.) in their laboratories that enter in thecomposition of our common world and reconfigure social relations. Society isno longer the same after genetically modified plants have been released in theenvironment or after a specific virus (e.g., HIV) has been identified.

… and into polis.

Once science has lost its exceptional status, more equitable, direct and inclusiveparticipation of citizens in controversial issues becomes possible. The hierarchyamong different forms of knowledge gives way to the development of a criticaldistance towards expertise. Common sense and local (traditional) knowledge be-come salient as inescapable resources to be mobilized in those circumstancessince they are no more considered as inferior or worthless types of knowledge.But a certain number of citizens did not wait for sociologists to debunk the mythof science and to get permission for involving themselves in the messy world of


the sociotechnical controversies as shown by recent studies in the field of publicunderstanding of science. There are a number of other instances reported in theliterature (McGinn & Roth, 1999) relating the influence of citizens on the ori-entation of research efforts.

Studies now show that when science moves from the confines of the labo-ratory into the world, scientists often loose their grip on knowledge construction.Increasingly, ordinary citizens with stakes in some issue contest scientists’epistemological exceptionalism (Rabeharisoa & Callon, 1999). In the ensuingcontroversy and negotiation, science often changes heretofore-accepted practicesand develops new methodologies that take into account local knowledge andneeds. For example, AIDS activists gained sufficient and different forms ofcredibility and thereby become genuine participants in the construction of scien-tific knowledge (Epstein, 1997). They participated in the construction of “validmethod” and “clinical protocols,” which were therefore no longer the preroga-tives of credentialed scientists. In this, they effected changes in the epistemicpractices of biomedical research and in the therapeutic practices in the medicalcare of the disease. The case shows that the politicization of AIDS has broughtabout a multiplication of possible ways in which the credibility of individualsand groups can be established. This constitutes a diversification of personnel inscientific knowledge construction beyond the highly and institutionally creden-tialed scientists, which in turn leads to more and more diverse trajectories of factconstruction and closure in controversies. Other research within the AIDS com-munity showed that the notion of science as clean and elegant is a myth that canbe upheld only when it remains in the laboratory and unconcerned with real life.Outside of the laboratory, science is messy, impure, and ambiguous and iscaught up in the economical, political, historical, or ethico-moral dimensions ofeveryday life (Epstein, 1995; Lee & Roth, 2001).

In fact, the AIDS studies and our own research show that the very notion of“scientific knowledge” needs to be questioned: Does knowledge, whose con-struction crucially involved the participation of non-scientists, deserve the ad-jective “scientific.” If it deserves this label then the very nature of science haschanged. It is no longer the sole prerogative of a special cadre of individuals butinvolves individuals and groups with expertise other than that traditionally de-scribed as “scientific.” A traditional take on science is that decisions concerningtechnical issues should be left in the hand of experts (Rowe & Frewer, 2000). Inthe deficit model, the public is not involved because, so goes the argument, itdoes not understand the salient issues and concepts or the processes of science.Scientists operating in the spirit of this take “bludgeon publics with ‘certainfacts,’ often ignoring the public’s own culturally embedded understandings”

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(Brown & Michael, 2001, p. 18). However, democratic ideals, particularly thoseof consistent with inclusive democracy (Fotopoulos, 1999a), imply a greater in-volvement of the public in policy-making issues that pertain to or involve sci-ence and technology. Over the past decades, it has become increasingly evidentthat in risk management related to genetically modified organisms, those in-volved make value judgements at all stages of the risk management process.There exists therefore an “increasing contention that public participation in pol-icy making in science and technology is necessary to reflect and acknowledgedemocratic ideals and enhance the trust in regulators and transparency in regu-latory systems” (Rowe & Frewer, 2000, p. 24).

Public participation involves a group of procedures designed to consult, in-volve, and inform the public to allow those affected by a decision to have an in-put in that decision. Rowe and Frewer compared and evaluated eight of the mostformalized public participation methods. These include referenda, public hear-ings/inquiries, public opinion surveys, negotiated rule making, consensus con-ferences, citizens’ jury/panel, citizen/public advisory committee, and focusgroups. After an extensive evaluation, the authors concluded that there is no onebest method for involving the public. But, public hearings, because they havethe potential to add balance and depth to information collected by other meanssuch as using surveys, are an important and widely used mechanism in democ-ratic countries. In the following case study, we show how scientific literacy be-comes enacted as praxis in one public hearing. Science and scientific method areno longer the prerogative of scientists but are open to reconfiguration.

Interrogating Scientists and Science in the Community: A Case Study

In this case study, we show that ordinary citizens can be involved in questioningscientists and science, and thereby actively participate in the way in which vari-ous forms of knowledge contribute to the solution of real problems. We do notargue for a demise of science but that its status should be open to interrogationfrom a variety of perspectives and therefore be relativized in a democratic proc-ess where all forms of knowledge undergo equal scrutiny. Its value has to be ne-gotiated in a process that should include the people most concerned and affectedby the decisions made and in a process that has to include other forms of knowl-edge on a par.

This case study was constructed from materials that were collected as partof a three-year ethnographic effort in one Canadian community on the WestCoast. This effort was designed to increase our understanding of science in thecommunity, including the science of grade-seven students who exhibited what


they had learned about the health of a watershed during an open-house event or-ganized by an environmental activist group. Our database includes field notes,videotapes, and audiotapes documenting various ways in which the people ofOceanside2 and environmental activists pursued activities relating to the healthof the watershed in which they live. Here we focus on the participation of citi-zens in one particular audiotaped event, a public hearing concerning the prob-lematic situation of the drinking water in one part of Oceanside. As a publichearing, the events reported here constitute an example of the ways in which or-dinary citizens can participate in policy- and decision-making regarding envi-ronmental and health issues. We have obtained all publications pertaining to thedrinking water, municipal documents, scientific (consultant) reports, reports byvarious agencies, and copies of letters by the representative of the Salina Pointresidents.

Background

The public hearing was held in the community of Oceanside, where a variety ofwater issues are and have been central and ongoing concern. In this particularcase, the media had repeatedly reported on the situation in one part of the com-munity, Salina Point, which is not connected to the watermain. All properties ofSalina Point supply their own water from wells on their properties and fromcisterns. Because the wells are recharged mainly through precipitation, the watersupply depends on weather patterns; very dry summers lead to depletion of theaquifer and a correlated increase in the mineral contents and contamination bybiological organisms. Repeatedly in the last several years, local newspapershave carried stories about the fact that the water quality in these wells had beendeclared unfit for consumption without prior boiling, forcing residents to drivefive kilometers to get their water from the next gas station.

The town council of Oceanside felt that the estimated cost of $850,000 forextending the currently existing water lines in order to supply Salina Point wastoo high to be covered through its allocated and available budget. A total of sixreports had been commissioned prior to the public hearing. These reports in-cluded one by the Regional Health Authority, a preliminary report by theOceanside Water Advisory Task Force, the report by a consulting hydrologist,the final report by the Water Advisory Task Force, a minority report submitted

2 Although this was a public hearing, recorded and documented by the media, we will usepseudonyms to protect the identity of the community and the individuals involved. Also,subsequent data from our studies among school children have been rendered anonymous.

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by a subgroup of the Water Advisory Task Force, and a report by the munici-pality. The mayor of Oceanside had called for a public hearing, including theauthors of the technical and scientific reports. These authors would first providea sketch of their work and subsequently avail themselves to questions and com-ments from the public. Furthermore, the hearing was to provide opportunities formembers of the community to ask questions and to make presentations.

From the presentation of one expert

In this case study, we focus on the presentation of one expert and his interac-tions with the audience. The moderator of the session, a member of the engi-neering staff of Oceanside, introduced Lowell as “a professional engineer and aprofessional geologist.” The moderator explained that the town council and theregional health authority had chosen Lowell as an independent consultant be-cause the research done by the regional health authority had been questioned forits scientific integrity. Some members of the Water Advisory Task Force hadquestioned whether the sampling was rigid enough to determine that problemsoccurred within the original houses or not or within the aquifer itself, that meansdown within the bedrock water in the wells. The moderator explained thatLowell had sampled nine wells, which in the consultant’s professional opinionwere representative of the ground water. Lowell had been asked to simply testthe water and to provide the community with a report about the quality of thewell water at Salina Point and an opinion about what might be done concerningthe quality issue. After being invited by the moderator, Lowell presented his re-port, from which we excerpted the following statements pertinent to citizenquestions that we present and discuss below.

We chose the representative wells by their distribution in the area, well depth, well yield,and sampling history to get a representative cross-section of wells. We selected somewells because they were deeper wells, some wells because they were shallow wells,higher yielding wells, and lower yielding wells to get a good cross-section of wells thatwere in that area… The sampling methodology was, “sample as close to the well as pos-sible an, at an outside tap or right at the wellhead.” We tried to avoid house plumbing andcisterns as much as possible. So we pumped the wells for as much as fifteen minutes andas much as one hour to get a fresh water supply coming straight from the aquifer and notcoming from storage. The results of our testing show that according to the Guidelines forCanadian Drinking Water Quality, there are no concerns related to health. None wereidentified in the parameters that we tested. Some aesthetic objectives from the Guidelinesfor Canadian Drinking Water Quality were exceeded for some of the wells. Aestheticobjectives are for … certain parameters in the water may cause the water to be corrosive,deposit forming, or unpalatable. These are given a separate category because they are nota health concern but they are a concern. Total dissolved solids, that is one measure of


water quality, four out of nine wells exceeded that parameter; turbidity, one of nine wellsexceeded that; aluminum, one out of nine wells; iron, two out of nine wells; manganese,four out of nine wells; zinc, one of nine wells. For all of the bacteriological testing done,no wells were found to be unacceptable.

Lowell had made his presentation by drawing on the rhetorical registers thatcharacterize science and engineering: It was very factual, presented those as-pects of the methodology that supported claims about the generalizability of theresults from the nine sampled wells to all wells at Salina Point. He described thepoint of sampling to support claims that in fact well water had been tested ratherthan water that had remained in pipes, storage tanks, or cisterns. The privilegedstatus of this expert witness was established by presenting him as “a professionalengineer and a professional geologist,” including him into the ranks of other sci-entific experts, some of whom were introduced with their degrees. (“Mr. Yin hasa Masters of Science degree, and has significant experience with water qualityissues and he has been involved extensively in both reports in the sampling epi-sodes.”) This, of course, is a classical tactic for constructing exceptional statusof the claims by the individuals thus elevated.

From the questioning of the expert: Situation 1

After the different scientists and representatives of the Water Advisory TaskForce had presented summaries of their report, the moderator of the publichearing encouraged members of the audience to ask questions and make com-ments pertaining to the technical issues of the reports.

Hays: You took water samples from our property. Now, I was told that you letthe water run. The problem is, first of all, at any source you get the wateris coming out of a cistern that is two or three thousand gallons. It’s had achance to settle out, number one. Number two, the water you’ve got hasbeen mitigated through a water softener. Number three, it has been miti-gated under a U-V system to kill bacteria. How can you say we can miti-gate our water? I mean how much more mitigation can we do?

Moderator: Dan [Lowell], can you? Do you know about that particular well, whetheryou tested it right at the well head or whether it was through the system?

Lowell: I don’t know of any well that we tested that had any kind of treatment. Wewent to the cistern to get the water but we went to where the water cameinto the cistern from the well. We didn’t, uh I think there might have beenone well that we tested from the cistern ‘cause there was no other way totest it but all the others were uh before the cistern, and before any kind oftreatment.


Hays: Are you sure of that? We have, an in-ground, basically a septic tank. Wehave a very low water flow and it has to go into a septic tank and fromthere. Unless you went through a lot of blackberry bushes, which I didn’treally see them disturbed, you’d have to go through quite a bit of brambleto get to it. It comes out of there, goes through the pump house, goesthrough a UV filter and goes out from there to the taps. And I assume itwas taken from the taps. So it’s gone through a UV filter to kill bacteriabecause we have water levels that are near septic fields. It’s gone througha water softener and a through a filter and it’s still reading pretty nastyhigh levels. So I don’t, I don’t personally feel that mitigation means muchto me since we’re already mitigating the hell out of the water as it is.

Lowell: Yeah, if that sample was treated before we got it that would mean that oneof the samples isn’t exactly what we thought it was. But it wouldn’tchange the conclusions of my report.

Whereas scientists are often portrayed as the guardians of scientific meth-odology, of which everyday folk are ignorant (Brown & Michael, 2001), thecommunity members in this meeting, here exemplified by Hays, did not appearto be overly impressed by the scientists, their articulated degrees, or their exper-tise. In fact, an important dimension of all the questions was the appropriatenessof the methodology used and the validity of the data to draw the conclusion thatthe independent consultant Lowell had presented.

The first exchange opened with Hays’ questions about where the watersamples had been taken. Hays suggested that the sheer water quantity in his cis-tern would have implied that Lowell tested water that had been stagnant for awhile, and therefore allowed any substances to settle. Stating the holding capac-ity of his cistern, 2000 or 3000 gallons of water contrasted the 15 minutes of let-ting the water run at the tap. Common sense tells any listener that a water taprunning for 15 minutes does not empty, 2000 gallons of water necessary to haveaccess to the water from the well. He thereby made salient a potential problemin the methodology, which implicitly raised questions about the validity of thefindings ‘no wells were found unacceptable’. Further, the water samples wouldhave already been mitigated through a water softener and a bacteria-killing sys-tem based on UV irradiation.

Lowell attempted to defend himself by saying, consistent with his initialpresentation, that to his knowledge all water tested came from the wells ratherthan from cistern (with perhaps one exception). Hays questioned the veracity ofLowell’s statements thereby portraying them as claims rather than as matters offact as it came across in Lowell’s presentation and initial response. Hays subse-quent question again put the authority of Lowell’s description of method into


relief by stating that there had been no evidence on his property that Lowell hadactually accessed the water at the only place where it could have been sampledin unmitigated form. Therefore, there is a strong possibility that Lowell’s datawere not unbiased. Nevertheless, he claimed that even if he had not conductedthese measurements appropriately his overall conclusion would not change.

Here, we see an ordinary citizen questioning the legitimacy of a scientificreport. The transcript does not allow us to think of Hays as an ignorant person.For example, although Hays probably had a conception of what a solution mightbe that is different from what Lowell proposed, he could participate in the de-bate quite efficiently. In these circumstances, it makes us acknowledge a personwho, through his public participation in the hearing, produces knowledgeabilityabout the operation of water softeners, UV filters and their action on bacteria(but not on other aspects of water quality), and the effect nearby septic fieldshave on drinking water. (In rural areas, many homes still use septic fields wherewastewater is allowed to move through a special bed made of rocks, pebbles,and sand to enter the ground water.) This episode quite clearly illustrates how“lay expertise” and common knowledge can be mobilized in order to clarifywhat is at stake in the context of a sociotechnical controversy.

From the questioning of the expert: Situation 2

In the following excerpt, another local resident, Naught, asked the expert Lowellto evaluate his own results in the light of those apparently contradictory onespresented by another scientists in the service of the regional health authority.Here, the major issue was whether Lowell’s data represent an average value orwhether they have to be interpreted as a short-term, best-case scenario. Naughtnot only asked the expert to make this evaluation but also, as his further ques-tioning shows, brings out the pertinent issues that have led to the contradictionsbetween the two reports authored by Lowell, on the one hand, and the scientistsfrom the regional health authority, on the other.

Naught: How do you feel about your results now that you’ve heard the... personfrom the Ministry of Health describe what he feels could affect the read-ings. You seem to rely very heavily on the readings that you took. Okay,which seems to be explained by the difference in rainfall. Now are you inagreement, for example, that the aquifer and the water coming from thewells is largely the result of rainfall?

Lowell: That’s right. It’s all the result of rainfall, not just largely.Naught: OK, well there’s a buffering effect, there’s an immediate effect. I mean,

well I shouldn’t say that there’s an immediate affect, a slower affect, one


that occurs as a result of a longer period of time. We’ll say, predominantlytwo, three to five months?

Lowell: All the water that got, all the fresh water that got in the aquifer came fromrainwater, originally.

Naught: Yeah, but–Lowell: Some may have been in the ground longer than others- a longer period of

time and water that has been in the ground for a longer period of time canhave a higher mineralization because it absorbs minerals from the rocks.

Naught: Of course. And what we have- Can you tell me the years that you havecharted here, what years were those logged for?

Lowell: Yeah. The, the observation well has been in service since, nineteen sev-enty-nine but I can see here, and that’s from October ninety-seven and wehad data up to June of nineteen ninety-nine.

Naught: OK, so what is your understanding of what happened last fall and thisspring with respect to the water amounts of rainfall? Was this a heavy pe-riod or a normal period?

Lowell: I know that it was a record period per rainfall but it’s not reflected in waterlevels in the area because the peak water levels in the aquifer in, nineteeneighty-eight were higher than in the winter levels in nineteen ninety-nine.

Naught: Just a minute. You just said that it was a direct result of water and we’vejust had a record rainfall and it doesn’t affect it? Well, there’s somethingmissing here.

Lowell: That means that only a certain amount of the rainfall can get into the aqui-fer being the heavy rains are running off. That’s my interpretation.

Naught: Well, it could also–Lowell: There’s a limiting factor as to how much can get down into the–Naught: Well, it’s okay, this is true but the thing is that what we’ve experienced

rainfall in the order of 522% on average, as far as monthly averages areconcerned, increase over the summer months. In other words what we’vegot through the winter period, through the 5 months previously precedingyour test results... If you took that and compared that to an average sum-mer month, a month through that period, there were 522% more. Now, itwould seem to me that we’re probably not dealing on an average resultwith your tests, we’re probably dealing on the hydrostatic head feedingthat aquifer up in the higher, very much higher ends, so that the readingsthat you’re getting are very much diluted.

Lowell: The hydrograph that we have shows that the water levels are average inlate April, early May and I put the average water level on the hydrographhere and the–

Naught: Could it be an error? Could you be in error here?


Lowell had argued that his data—taken at a water level in the aquifer mid-way between its minimum and maximum values—represented an average andtherefore representative value of the biological and chemical parameters of wa-ter quality. The scientists from the regional health authority suggested, on theother hand, that there are fluctuations in water levels such that during one half ofthe year, the quality values are in fact below the Health Canada standards. In thisexcerpt, Naught questioned Lowell about the variations, the level of water in theaquifer at the time Lowell conducted his measurements. In this, this interactionwas a moment where the contradictory claims of acceptability of water qualitywere made salient again in public.

Naught is but another resident of the area. He asked Lowell to reflect on theresults of his own readings after having another report, which had come to dif-ferent conclusion. In particular, Naught asked Lowell to attend to and interpretthe effect of sampling moment to the amount of rainfall at and prior to the timeof testing. In response to Lowell’s description that all the water in the wells andin the aquifer comes from rainfall, Naught stated that there should be a bufferingaspect. That is, changes in the aquifer do not directly correlate with the rainfallbut are delayed by three to five months.

As Lowell made another categorical statement that all water came fromrain, Naught’s interjection “but–” made Lowell if not retract so to modify hisearlier statement. He now admitted that water would increase in dissolved min-erals if it stayed for longer amounts of time in the ground. Naught’s subsequentquestion aimed at eliciting from Lowell a statement about the groundwater lev-els; Lowell had to admit that there were record water levels but attempted to ar-gue that these rainfalls did not affect the groundwater levels. However, Naughtquestioned this claim by contrasting it with a previous, seemingly contradictoryone. Lowell attempted to argue that there are limits to absorption and that muchof the rainwater would be carried away as run-off. Naught was unsatisfied bythis response. He suggested that there is a 522% increase in rainfall from thesummer to the winter months. The water levels could not have been average asLowell had claimed in his report and that therefore, the concentrations of sub-stances would generally be lower (more diluted) than under normal circum-stances. Lowell, however, responded that the hydrograph had shown an averagereading. We notice in the last excerpt that Naught was unsatisfied by this an-swer. He first cast doubt on Lowell’s conclusion by evoking the possibility thatan error could have been committed in using the average water level registeredby the hydrograph in the months of April and May. More so, in a clever or astuterhetorical move, he squarely attributed the responsibility to the expert, “Couldyou be in error here?”


In this episode again, we see a member of the general public question thecontent of a scientific report on water quality, the methodology for gathering thedata, and for the inferences made on the basis of the data. Hays and Naught, andall the other individuals who asked questions, did not appear to be intimidatedby the social status usually attributed to scientific experts (here, several scien-tists were introduced by mentioning degree and rank in their respective institu-tional hierarchies). They pursued their lines of questioning which put into reliefwhat otherwise were presented as authoritative statements about the quality ofthe water they were using. Indeed we have here a good example of the “gooduse of experts,” which, according to Fourez (1997), constitutes one of the com-petencies individuals should develop in the context of their education in the sci-ences conceived as social practices.

Other exhibits of scientific literacy

The authority of the scientific report was also questioned by rather personal ac-counts of having to live with the water from the wells. For example, one residentstated that if he watered his flowers, they would burn. Their water pipes, dish-washer and washer corrode so that they have to be replaced frequently.

Expertise Labs tested our water that was shortly after we moved in ‘cause we were con-cerned then. We were over the acceptable limit of arsenic, five times the acceptable limitof lead, plus other problems. Their comments were included that continuous arsenic in-gestion in high amounts is toxic. Sources of arsenic in water include industrial discharge,mineral dissolution, and insecticides. Lead. Lead is toxic and accumulates in body tis-sues. Lead may come from old lead pipes, which we don’t have, solders or industrial dis-charges. Even small amounts can contribute to learning disability in children. (Bruner,local resident)

Lowell had claimed that the levels of toxic substances were below the offi-cial permissible limits. Yet the resident, who had hired their own consultingfirm, presented data that were inconsistent with Lowell’s data and conclusion.Consistent with the claims of the local health authority that the water is unac-ceptable during some parts of the year and contradicting Lowell’s claims thatwater quality is acceptable based on his sample representing the average situa-tion this contribution provided another description of the presence of toxic sub-stances and their effects. In this situation, local people did not just wildly com-plain and express their displeasure, but knew to find an appropriate agency(Expertise Labs) that would provide them with a report the contents of whichthey could subsequently use in the presentation of their case about the water.


Knowledgeability with respect to finding and drawing on a variety of resourcesis a central aspect of scientific and technological literacy as social practice(Fourez, 1997).

What can we learn from the public hearing?

In these excerpts from the public hearing, we can observe ordinary but con-cerned citizens engage scientists and science in exchanges over the nature of thewater problem and the way in which the data documenting the levels of waterquality had been established. The citizens ask scientists to reflect on their owntest results in the light of other results that had been made available during thehearing or that the contributing individual made available. Furthermore, evi-dence that was either omitted or labeled as unimportant by scientists was em-phasized and therefore made salient by the citizens. Thus, the to Lowell appar-ently unimportant aesthetic indicators are major problems in the lives of theresidents—dying plants, corroding pipes and appliances, toxic levels of arsenicand lead—whose sole water supply, other than trucking this resource, lies in thewells. In contrast to the scientists, the people are experts with respect to localand historically situated knowledge concerning the water in this area, its chang-ing levels throughout the years, alternative supplies, increasing salination of theresource, and so forth. Truly democratic decision-making processes take into ac-count these local forms of expertise, which constitutes remains “largely a hiddenand untapped resource for understanding the complicated, shifting connectionsbetween human behaviour and environmental conditions” (Bowerbank, 1997, p.28). Citizens are actively involved in the construction of the facts concerning thewater, health, and environment in the area covered by Salina Point. Science inthis case is not clean but tied up with the economics of the situation, the costs ofthe varying solutions (status quo, constructing water main, trucking, recyclingwastewater) and the different ways of covering the costs (Salina Point residents,Oceanside residents). We may ask, what can science education do to support themaking of concerned and involved citizens?

Citizenship and Science Education

In the past, science education, scientific literacy and science curriculum havebeen theorized from the perspective of an asocial and fictional view of the sci-ences. Given the substantial disaffection with the sciences among students andthe problematic nature of scientists’ contributions to the problems of the world,this approach to science education has to be questioned. Here, we propose totake the notions of citizenship and inclusive democracy as starting points for


theorizing science education. In other words, we want science education to con-tribute to citizenship and inclusive democracy rather than being a selectionmechanism for the formation of a scientific elite (e.g., Brookhart Costa, 1993)operating within the citadel that towers over the public.

Science and scientific productions (facts, theories) used to be the exclusivedomain of discipline-based experts. However, science and its productions havenot only become open to discussion in socio-political arenas but cannot reasona-bly be thought as pure forms separate from economy, politics, ethics. The oldidea of the appeal to facts and their interpretation by accredited experts has beeneroded by the increasingly obvious limitations of experts and expert knowledgein resolving issues of public controversy (Berlan & Lewontin, 1998; Martin &Richards, 1995). With this realization, the role of the active citizen, who partici-pates in policy-setting and decision-making processes, has taken on increasingimportance. Becoming scientifically and technologically literate cannot meanthe acquisition of some definitely acquired and definite skill but is akin to ac-quiring “a certain autonomy,” “a certain capacity to communicate,” “copingwith specific situations,” and “negotiating over outcomes” (Fourez, 1997, p.906). This, so Fourez, requires the construction of “interdisciplinary rationalityislands” that are useful when people make decisions about unique and distinctsituations and make use of knowledge that derives from many disciplines andfrom the know-how of everyday life. The question therefore is not to think citi-zenship from the disciplinary perspective of science education, but to think sci-ence education from the perspective of citizenship. What can science educationcontribute to the more general project of educating the engaged and responsiblecitizen?

What kinds of activity prepare scientifically literate and engaged citizens?

In recent years, researchers from sociocultural perspectives on cognition sug-gested that activities designed for students to appropriate practices (Rogoff,1995) have to be authentic in as much as they are “ordinary practices of theculture” (Brown et al., 1989, p. 34). Authenticity, according to activity theory,arises from a match between individual and societal motives characteristic of anactivity (Roth, 2002). Yet authenticity is also often being defined in terms of thefamily resemblance between the practices of professionals in a target domain,scientists or mathematicians. But, given that the overwhelming majority of stu-dents will never become scientist or mathematician, using these professionalpractices as priority referents for thinking about the curriculum appears to be in-appropriate.


In our public hearing, the citizens were engaged in authentic activity. Therewas a direct concern for the citizens involved—the outcome of the decisions tobe taken would have direct bearing on their lives and that of the community, notthe least being who pays how much for the solution to the water problem. Ratherthan passively accepting their fate, however, the residents of Salina Point ac-tively interrogated scientists, science and scientific method. Science educatorsmight think that modeling such events constitute suitable contexts for learningscience. For example, in one teaching model, students are provided “with expe-riences in thoughtful decision-making on controversial socio-scientific issues”(Kolstoe, 2000, p. 645). Yet in our view, this approach limits what students learnfor there are no stakes and consequences in whatever decisions are made. How-ever, in an authentic activity the stakes and investments made by the subjectconsiderably shapes the situation, both what is salient figure and what is consid-ered the ground. Thus, the level of expertise in dealing with school case studiesdoes not predict the level of expertise in real situations of which the cases aresaid to be models.

From the perspective of cultural-historical activity theory, society and cul-ture mediate the motive of activity (Engeström, 1999; Leont’ev, 1978). Butwhen the individual subject who enters a relation with the activity-defining ob-ject of activity does not subscribe to the motive, there then exists a hiatus andsometimes a contradiction. These disruptions in the narrative lead to “work-arounds” in the sense that the motive of the activity is subverted. For example,middle-class students adapt their language and motive to that of the school (e.g.,Eckert, 1989) and thereby successfully enter into a reproductive cycle of themiddle class. Working-class students, on the other hand, often engage in actionsthat are inconsistent with the motive underlying schooling, are not successful,and thereby contribute to the reproduction of the working class (Bourdieu, 1994;Willis, 1977). Thus, if school activity is to be authentic, the activity has to be le-gitimate both at the societal as at the individual level. As a consequence, partici-pating in “authentic” activity leads to the development of knowledgeabil-ity—rather than the (short-term) storage of isolated facts. Knowledgeability,knowing one’s way around the world more generally, is routinely in a state ofchange and is central to the identity of the subject who participates in the activ-ity (Lave, 1993). Knowledgeability is related to the identity of a person—which,for a particular student, may lie to a greater extent in his competencies on theskateboard rather than in factoring polynomials. Routine collective (authentic)activity includes as much the production of failure as the production of average,ordinary knowledgeability. Knowledgeability and authenticity are linked to thenotion of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Both


knowledgeability and authenticity are achieved when people participate in on-going activity, which derives its motive from a larger collective, but their par-ticipation is at a level matched to the existing competencies of the individual.Authentic activity therefore leads us straight into community, society and par-ticipation in inclusive democracy.

These ideas also extend to science education as a lifelong and informal en-deavor. Thus, the citizens did not only participate in the public hearing, but alsoset themselves up for changing their participation in subsequent events. Chang-ing participation in a changing world is equivalent to learning (Lave, 1993).That is, the very participation in the public hearing provides opportunities forlifelong learning and informal science education. Participation in community af-fairs, as some studies have shown (e.g., Roth, 2002), provides students withsimilar opportunities to learn and take control over the life conditions.

Why go into the community?

If we were to take a simplistic approach and ask students to enact a public hear-ing about a pressing water issue in their community, they would still do this inthe context of schooling. The outcome of their debate would not have any bear-ing on their community but simply be another school-related activity. The activ-ity would be inauthentic. However, if students were to engage in activities thatdirectly contribute to community life, that is, if they were to enact citizenship inpractice, they also contribute to their development as citizen. Their activitywould be authentic. That is, paraphrasing Hodson (1999) we argue that the valueof science education should be discussed in terms of its potential to engage stu-dents in a politicized ethic of care, the degree to which it allows students to be-come actively involved in local manifestations of particular problems, and theirknowledgeability with respect to resolving conflicts of interest.

The individuals who questioned Lowell, the engineer and professional ge-ologist, enacted average knowledgeability that is not likely to be achieved bydoing more of the same that students currently receive in many science classes.Hays, Naught, and the other individuals questioned the very scientific method-ology that was employed by Lowell and provided evidence that there were flawsin what the expert had done. A simulacrum of a public hearing staged as part ofa science class, is but another school activity. While it may be different andmore interesting than what has been done before it still does not contribute to thelife of the community. The activities and their outcomes have no consequencesto anything than classroom life—unless, as happens in a few cases, a student isinspired and takes the school activity as a starting point for a greater and deeperinvolvement in related issues outside schools.


The literature on situated cognition can be used in support of this notion ofauthenticity. In the past decade, much has been learned about the situated natureof cognition. Some of the research conducted in mathematics in school and atwork (dairy factory, street markets) shows that schooling contributes very littleto the nature of mathematical competence outside schools (Lave, 1988; Saxe,1991). Similarly, despite their high school physics classes, many physics andengineering students talk about motion phenomena in ways incompatible withstandard physics (Clement, 1982). Yet the high grades these students had re-ceived appeared to affirm that they had learned standard physics. There are onlytenuous relationships between students’ expertise on school-related tasks andtheir competencies on problems as they arise from everyday contexts afterschool. Such findings therefore question the assumption that school activities di-rectly prepare students for activities after they have left high schools. Theschooling experience makes students good at being successful in school-relatedtasks but do not necessarily make them more successful than unschooled indi-viduals on tasks normally encountered outside schools.3

Thus, if individuals get good at what they do for a considerable amount oftime and if the objective of education is to assist students in becoming activecitizens with a critical stance to all sorts of knowledge claims, then studentsshould already participate as citizens in the affairs of the community.

The case has been made that “Learning is not in the head of people but inthe relations between people” and that “learning does not belong to individualpersons, but to the various conversations of which they are part” (McDermott,1993, p. 292). Scientific literacy is therefore not something that is acquired bythe child and then carried around into other settings, or carried into the life afterschool. Scientific literacy, as citizenship, belongs, to paraphrase McDermott, tothe various conversations of which people are part. It is not so much that Lowell,Hays, and Naught are scientifically literate, each in his own way, but that thesituation of the public hearing allowed scientific literacy to emerge as a recog-nizable and analyzable feature of human interaction.

3 We do not deny that students develop knowledgeability in their current science classes.However, this knowledgeability relates to being successful in school science and thetasks students encounter there. It also relates to being successful at the university. As thecomments of many employers we have been talking to attest, many graduates are unpre-pared for what waits for them in the workplace.


Does everyone have to achieve according to a particular predetermined norm?

In schools, norms encapsulated in curricular objectives such as “students will beable to state that water is a basic constituent of life,” because they make state-ments about all individuals irrespective of social location, contribute to the pro-duction of failure. Here, those students who do not produce particular statementsin situations where they are cut off all of the resources that are normally avail-able to them are constructed as lesser or as failures in the attempt to make themscientifically literate. Equal competencies are not the norm in everydaylife—furthermore, different individuals contribute in their own ways to makeevents recognizable for what they are. For example, those present in the publichearing participated in different ways. Some actively asked questions or interro-gated a presenter. Others provided their perspectives and evidence from theirdaily lives that made salient the problematic nature of well water in the area. Yetothers simply listened or provided supportive “yeahs” and applause. These par-ticipants are not to be taken as scientifically illiterate but as important partici-pants in the context that allowed scientific literacy to occur. Every one contrib-uted to make this event recognizable as a public hearing, which led to theemergence of scientific literacy. It is the very context of a public hearing, whichinclude speakers, moderator, and audience, experts and lay people, individualswith stakes in the outcome and ‘impartial’ consultants that makes visible andthereby allows the identification of scientific literacy. Paraphrasing McDermott(1993), we might say that everyone was part of the choreography of a publichearing that produces moments for the public appearance of scientific literacyand citizenship. Potential problems in Lowell’s methodology, and therefore thefact that scientific expertise can be questioned, were produced in this hearing asmuch as the cunning abilities attributed to individuals such as Hays and Naughtto expose these problems. The applause and supportive utterances, which con-tributed to making visible problems and cunning abilities, were as much part ofthe production of the public hearing as the questions and responses and thereforethe very phenomenon of scientific literacy and engaged citizenship exhibited.

Citizenship is often mentioned in connection with the necessity of science,technology, and economy to live in today’s society (e.g., Brown & Michael,2001; Fotopoulos, 1999b). However, almost all science and even science-technology-society courses take an approach where what students do in theclassroom should be applicable to their immediate and future lives rather thanbeing immediately part of it. Furthermore, in actual practice, courses that are de-signed for students to make connections between science, technology, and soci-ety are intended for those students who have difficulties mastering technical


material, that is, scientific concepts as treated in textbooks, and mathematics.We believe that this aspect of science education has to be rethought as well.

Teaching for citizenship and scientific literacy as praxis has the potential tochallenge traditional separations in the school curriculum that relegates scienceinto science, technology, mathematics, and social studies into separate class-rooms, each concerned with the subject in a more or less pure form. Not everyscience educator will be comfortable with that because treating science as butone of the many different strands that make everyday life threatens existing aspi-rations of science, scientists, and science educators to have a privileged status insociety. However, studies of science in everyday life show that it is intertwinedwith economics, politics, power, and values more generally. Science in societyas enacted by citizens cannot be separated neatly and cleanly from the othersubjects. Rather, central concerns and motives govern activities and people (sci-entists and non-scientists alike) draw on the resources that they deem to be mostappropriate in the situation. We believe that the time is right to rethink scienceeducation and scientific literacy—we propose here to do this by positing citizen-ship and inclusive democracy and to teach science accordingly.

Acknowledgements

This research was in part supported by Grants 410-96-0681 and 410-99-0021from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)and by an internal SSHRC grant from the University of Victoria. We thank theStuart Lee, Frances Thorsen, G. Michael Bowen, and Sylvie Boutonné for theircontribution to the data collection and transcription.

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